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Tourism leaders are asking for an increase in funding from officials of the city of Corinth and Alcorn County.

The Daily Corinthian reported the Corinth Board of Mayor and Aldermen and Alcorn County Board of Supervisors will complete their budgets in September for the coming fiscal year.

The Corinth Area Convention and Visitors Bureau wants an increase in its monthly allotment of tourism tax funding from $42,000 to $45,000. Crossroads Arena is poised to receive $200,000 from the tourism budget, down from $250,000 in the current fiscal year.

A Baton Rouge, La., man became a millionaire Friday after hitting a $2.1 million jackpot at the Hard Rock Casino in Biloxi.

The man, identified in a casino news release as Aaron K., works as a cook on a riverboat. He says he had been playing the Wheel of Fortune slot machine for less than five minutes when he hit the progressive jackpot.

During the FBI’s ongoing investigation into letters containing ricin addressed to President Barack Obama, Senator Roger Wicker, and a Mississippi judicial official – Sadie Holland – evidence collected by the FBI from the former business, Tupelo Taekwondo Plus, located on Rankin Boulevard Ext. in Tupelo, Mississippi, tested positive for trace levels of ricin.

Because public safety is always the FBI’s first priority in any investigation, that location was immediately sealed off and appropriate public health authorities were notified. The FBI is now conducting further forensic examination for the purpose of identifying trace evidence, residues, and signatures of production that could provide evidence to support the investigation.

Ricin is a poison found naturally in castor beans. Ricin poisoning can occur when the substance enters the body through ingestion, inhalation, or injection. To date, the FBI is not aware of any illness as a result of exposure to these letters.

Federal authorities have produced scant evidence linking a Mississippi man to the mailing of ricin-laced letters to the president and a senator, his attorney says.

Christi McCoy said after a court hearing Friday that the government has offered no evidence to prove her client, Paul Kevin Curtis, had possession of any ricin or the seed from which it is extracted – castor beans. An FBI agent testified during the hearing that he could not say if investigators had found ricin at Curtis’ home, and McCoy said the evidence linking the 45-year-old to the crime so far has hinged on his writings posted online.

He is adamant that he did not do this, and she said she has seen nothing to prove him wrong.

A 25-year-old Corinth man is being held on a $350,000 bond after authorities said he allegedly shot his girlfriend in the face after they broke up. Demarlen O’Bryan Davis is being charged with possession of a weapon by a convicted felon and homicide in the death of 22-year-old Karson Stewart.

Captain Ralph Dance, an investigator with the Corinth Police Department, said Davis was taken into custody shortly after the incident on March 26.

Dance said several 911 calls brought police to an unoccupied residence in the 600 block of Martin Luther King Drive.

Funeral services are scheduled for 1 p.m. today for a Mississippi native and Marine corporal gunned down during a murder-suicide at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia.

On Thursday, March 21, Cpl. Jacob Lee Wooley, 23, of Corinth, was pronounced dead at the scene after a shooting incident at Taylor Hall during Officer Candidates School (OCS) in Triangle, Virginia.

Wooley and 19-year-old Lance Cpl. Sara Castromata, of Oakley, Calif., were shot to death by fellow Marine and tactics instructor, 25-year-old Sgt. Eusebio Lopez. Lopez then shot himself. Officials at Quantico said all three Marines had been assigned to OCS and all three were pronounced at the scene.